


After the World Ends

by tessykins



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-19
Updated: 2007-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessykins/pseuds/tessykins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This isn’t a rescue mission, it’s a salvage run. Peter’s broken; but what’s left of him, Claude will keep safe.</i> An AU of the end of Season One in which Peter explodes and Claude comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the World Ends

Claude is hiding in Philadelphia when New York City explodes. As soon as he hears the news, Claude steals a car and heads back home. Instinct prompts him, drives him on. The drive seems to take an eternity. In reality, it’s fast. The roads are all empty in his direction. The lanes are overflowing in the other direction; thousands of people fleeing the destruction. He can’t see the mushroom cloud on the horizon, but he imagines he can.

He has to abandon the car at halfway to the center of the city. The roads end and the rubble begins. Claude is stunned for a moment at the sheer scope of the destruction. Here, at the edges of the blast, there are still structures standing. As he walks towards the epicenter, there is nothing but debris and ash. The fear of radiation poisoning tickles the back of his mind, but he ignores it.

He finds Peter unconscious in the middle of a ring of devastation. The street around him has been scoured and laid bare, concrete melted and scorched. There have been no buildings standing for the last ten blocks. He picks the boy up and loops Peter’s arm around his shoulder. He begins to walk and Peter gains enough consciousness to move his feet. Together, they make their way out of the ruins of the city.

This isn’t a rescue mission, it’s a salvage run. Peter’s broken; but what’s left of him, Claude will keep safe.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The land outside the city is empty. Everyone for hundreds of miles has fled or is in hiding. It’s like they’re only two people left in the world. Peter eventually regains consciousness in the passenger seat.

Claude stares straight ahead as the boy sobs.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He finds out the death toll later. The blast radius wasn’t very large, but it destroyed everything in its path. A few people, maybe a hundred, managed to make it out of range in time. Once it happened, nothing in its way survived. Three million dead in an instant. People outside the limits of the explosion are starting to die of radiation poisoning. The number of dead keeps rising.

Claude never tells Peter.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Peter doesn’t speak for weeks. Claude doesn’t mind; before Peter, he spent years completely alone. They’re on the run now, sleeping in cheap motels and spending days driving. They’re headed nowhere but away. They’re running from his past employers, and they’re running from Peter’s powers.

It’s the middle of the night when Peter finally speaks. Claude is awake—he rarely sleeps now—when he hears the door of his motel room creak open. Peter is standing in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the darker night. Peter approaches the bed with hesitant movements. Claude turns his head as the boy sits down at the edge of the bed.

“Claude,” Peter whispers, his voice rusty with disuse.

It is the need in Peter’s voice that undoes him. He opens his arms and lets him crawl into his embrace. He holds the boy in his arms under scratchy motel sheets and stares up into the dark. Peter clings to him desperately; eyes clenched shut and mouth twisted in pain. Claude cradles him for the rest of the night, a futile attempt to protect him against the sorrow, and the dark, and the cold.


End file.
